COFFEE SHOP, 1321 LOCUST STREET, WALNUT CREEK, CA 94596

This is a place, comparatively new, that seems on the surface to be trying hard to please, but is suffering such a severe identity crisis about what it intends and strives to be, that it comes off as supremely pretentious and fails in nearly all respects, despite positive reviews to the contrary.
First off, it's routinely crowded and busy, so it's not for lack of business! Nor is it the fault of the majority of baristas here, most of whom(despite some negative digs by reviewers)work their butts off and remain generally cheerful, efficient, friendly and pleasant throughout some blatantly unpleasant working conditions.
Forget even trying to savor even the simplest of way OVER-priced beverages here: from their basic coffee, to tea(iced or hot)and hot chocolate, all taste roundly watered down and flavorless.  I've never tasted basic beverages THAT bad ANY-place, and when they make you miss Starbucks, that's REALLY bad!
And don't even pretend that that muddy water they claim to be "Irish coffee" resembles even in the slightest the real thing: anybody who's savored the true and original beverage at the Buena Vista Café in San Francisco knows the vast, indescribable difference!
Surprisingly, though, a couple of their sandwiches(likewise way OVER-priced)have turned out to be pretty tasty, even when their cold cheese is under-heated and un-melted!
One decided but important plus is this place's accessible condiment bar and its assorted additions and additives!
What's most unappealing about this place are two things: its basic physical layout and a majority of the OBNOXIOUS patrons that faulty setup attracts: either the laptop mob or the pretentious hipsters falling all over themselves(and everybody else)trying so futilely to act and look cool!
This is not a place to pause in PEACE simply to enjoy a beverage and quietly read the newspaper or a good book, compose written work, people-watch, much less have a quiet and intimate conversation with a preferred companion!  Too many hyper-pretentious "hipsters" frequent the place, trying ever so loudly to display themselves in all their supremely shallow and superficial glory!  If you doubt that, just tune in on some of their empty and vacuous conversations, which most of them seem bent on imposing upon the entire clientele-at-large!
This twin-faceted "diversity" could be reasonably suffered were the layout and furnishings vastly different, but as things are presently set up, PERSONAL SPACE as a concept is virtually non-existent and is continuously INVADED or otherwise disrupted. So it's designed for turn-over(and payola), not clientele enjoyment.
One of two scenarios regularly play out here:
First, the extremist laptop fanatics will literally clamber ALL OVER you, at those overly narrow cafeteria-style tables, trying to hook up their laptops, cell phones and other assorted chargeable electronic devices into the sparse, precious few available outlets!  What's clearly needed then is a SEPARATE SECTION, clearly demarcated for these fanatical IDIOTS what with all their feet-tripping chords and cables!
At the very front façade, on either side of the front entrance, are these twin metallic counter tops and supposedly adjustable bar-style stools, way too many crammed into the limited floor space there.  What's way beyond me is the reason or rationale why certain "hipsters" will awkwardly plod their way in, plop both themselves and their assorted junk(backpacks, laptops, whatever)with a big bang onto the shaky, metallic countertops, and will then proceed for the rest of their time spent there either banging further the metallic countertops with their fists or elbows, or playing "musical chairs" with the stools, constantly shifting or "adjusting" the seats for height instead of simply choosing a chair already suited to their height!  Sometimes it's just really UN-real to watch and observe!  Not to mention, downright rude to sit there and constantly and inexplicably rattle the metallic counter tops for no rational reason except to display and attract attention to themselves.
Second, are the hipster peacocks arriving to display in full bloom to a mostly DIS-interested and IN-different clientele all their self-conscious, self-entitled, HYPER-pretentious feathers in the noisiest, most obnoxious and superficial displays possible!  Clustering together in their little, shallow-talking cliques as if they're frequenting a bar, or worse, a fraternity or sorority house party!  These buffoonish clowns, likewise, could sorely use a SEPARATE SECTION where they can make their futile attempts to impress themselves since they're failing royally at impressing anybody else!
Either that, or set up a separate space(and proper furnishings)for patrons aspiring for a little quiet downtime with a book, paper or companion, not the hyper-pretension of minor mobs of hipster groupies!!
And, finally, those oversized, crooked chunks of faux-logs in the rearward section serving as floor refreshment holders do NOT stable "tables" for cups and plates make! 

LIVE FLUGELHORN PERFORMANCE, EXTENDED PLAY

LIVE FLUGELHORN PERFORMANCE

DO-NOTHING, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING WALNUT CREEK POLICE

In its Options menu is a heading titled, "Protecting Yourself," at the Walnut Creek Police Department website, under which is a sub-heading contained within a sub-menu titled, "Personal Security," under which is a bulleted list of so-called "strategies," one of which says:

• "If anyone bullies, threatens, or annoys you for any reason, call the police at 9-1-1. We will respond immediately and take care of them."

Bullying private apartment security guards are apparently exempt from this "strategy" and get granted carte blanche immunity and license to both annoy and bully apartment residents at will:

Friday night, the 27th of April 2012, between 10:30-11:00pm, I was approaching the rear cement stairway entrance to my apartment building to access the triple-building apartment complex built atop a two-tier parking garage.  Lighting is extremely dim so it's exceptionally dark.  At the base of the stairway I paused to observe a hulking male figure, brandishing a bright flashlight and lumbering along the asphalt footpath at the base of the two-level parking garage structure.  I advanced toward the stairway.  Abruptly the lone figure called out loudly to me in a loud, demanding voice, issuing this command--TWICE:

"Hold up there!"

Making out the hulking figure to be an obese black male wearing a dark blue police-like uniform, I pause and await his approach at the base of the stairway.

Throughout his entire plodding approach he shines the bright, heavy-duty flashlight he's brandishing directly in face for an extended period.  I await his approach--being unflawfully stopped and detained.

"What are you doing here?" he barks at me in a confrontational, belligerent manner, stepping up in close proximity to me.

"What do you mean?" I ask, aghast.

"Just what I said!" he barks again, parroting his interrogation.  "What are you doing here?"

"I live here," I answer.  "Who are you?"

I'm the property manager!" he spouts in an even louder, frothy voice like some rabid watchdog.  "I RUN this property!"

Up to this point this approaching black costumed ape had neither identified himself or his purpose.  As far as I knew, as a three-year apartment resident, the property managers occupy their main office Mon-Sat, 9am-6pm, and throughout that time they've never yet notified tenants about any security company or security guards patrolling the property--much less confrontationally accosting and stalking tenants.  So far as I knew, he was mis-representing both himself and his status.

"Well," I tell him dismissively, "this is the rear entrance to my apartment building, I live here, and I'm going upstairs."

"Whereabouts do you live?" he persists.

"You come out of the dark flashing a light in my face: I'm not showing you where I live."

I start up the stairs.  And it's a tall, lengthy flight of stairs--36 steps in total.

"Then I'm going to see where you going to," he persists. 

Now the rabid watchdog turns stalker.

Up the long flight to stone steps the hulking black stalker follows on me heels, wheezing all the way.

Atop the stairs I pause, turn and await his arrival at the landing above.

He stops and stares, silent.  I promptly break the silence.

"You can stand here all night," I tell him quite pointedly, "but you're not seeing where I live."

The black stalker grunts.  The stare-off continues.

I observe the black stalker's right shirt shoulder patch, which reads: STUPID SECURITY(the name changed to preserve privacy).

"Well, Mister Stupid Security," I ask him.  "Do you have name?"

"Joel," he mutters, I think.

"Sheesh," I scoff, shaking my head, and abruptly take off again, footing it to the front central courtyard of the apartment complex.  The black stalker follows, waddling after me, but finally gives it up and stops short of the street where I retreat--making my way around to the main office building, where I admit myself with my amenity key, back-tracking to my own apartment building residence via a circuitous route.

First thing Monday, the 30th of April 2012, I submitted a written complaint to the apartment building's main office.  At the same time I contacted the do-nothing, good-for-nothing Walnut Creek Police to report the incident via its online website contact.

Chasity Ledford, Police Services Supervisor, replied in her email:

"At this point it is not a police manner(sic)since it sounds like there is no issue with a potential imposter, but it is more the manner in which this security guard deals with the tenants."

During the so-called "off-hours," Ledford claims, the apartment property's security company technically becomes the "property manager."

I inform Ledford, in turn, that he may well indeed most mistakenly think that he manages the property at night, but in no way does he manage ME--or my comings and goings at any time of the night or day.

A private, observe-and-report security agent, unlawfully stopping and detaining any citizen without lawful cause, impersonating a police officer(by wearing a police-like uniform), and brandishing a potentially dangerous weapon(his heavy-duty flashlight)and commanding in a menacing manner: that's FALSE IMPRISONMENT.

Should this masquerader again accost me in the dead of night at my place of residence, where I lawfully live, conducting himself again like a bullying hoodlum from the hood, I inform Ledord, I shall simply ignore him and go on my way.   Should he physically attempt to impede my movements in any way I shall be perfectly within my rights to defend my person against any physical attack to my best capabilities.
Next I receive emails from Mark J Perlite, Police Lieutenant Administrator, not to tell me that the Creek cops will talk to this overbearing bully about impersonating a cop by stopping and detaining a private citizen, naturally, but rather to advise me against "taking matters into(my)own hands."  Further, he excuses the clod's actions by claiming they were "not illegal."
Now get THIS: Perlite goes on to even compliment and vindicate the clod's actions--all the while superficially suggesting that I summon police assistance the next time:

"Objectively speaking," Perlite proselytizes, "he is trying to do what he is paid to do - patrol the grounds and make sure non-residents do not create problems or commit crimes on the property.  One might even be appreciative that he is doing his job diligently."
What problem or crime is a RESIDENT creating or committing merely walking to their residence?
Perlite apparently condones the clod's accosting, confronting and intimidating residents, or for that matter non-residents, who could very well be guests of residents--condoning security stalking of residents at their places of residence without any recourse.
Such remarks really inspire confidence in the cops, don't they?  Were there a re-occurrence of this incident, and the cops called, the do-nothing, good-for-nothing Walnut Creek police could just be expected to show up to congratulate the clod for accosting and stalking a resident so "diligently."
All I know is: this is ALL WRONG!
As is having to constantly worry every time I return home whether this power-tripping clod will emerge from the dark to accost and stalk me all across the property--as if it were yet another civil entitlement--and paying an exorbitant monthly rent for the privilege.
Since the do-nothing, good-for-nothing Walnut Creek Police refuse to nip this clod's unethical and unlawful mal-conduct in the bud, this is in closing a public appeal to any activist personal injury or tort attorney to contact me if interested in launching a civil lawsuit against the offending apartment management for all the undue and totally unjustifiable emotional and mental stress I'm unjustly forced to endure each and every time I return at night to my lawful place of residence, which because of the outright indifference of the apartment management and the local police department, no longer feels like a safe, secure and pleasant home: which by God and by all rights is MY just-due civil entitlement.
Had Perlite been accosted in the dead of night by this confronational clod, brandishing a potentially dangerous weapon in an overbearing and obnoxious manner, I daresay he would've arrested the clod at best, or shot him at worst.  Hear him tell it, though, a confrontational private security acting like a belligerent hoodlum, accosting and stalking an apartment property resident, is all perfectly "legal."

As acting belligerent and confrontational to people in public is wholly "legal"--at least according to Perlite--I'll surely know how to comport myself with this clod the next time!
http://www.walnut-creek.org/citygov/depts/police/default.asp 

LOVE STORY(1970)and why the CASTRO THEATRE, MARC HUESTIS PRESENTS&CO. should CARE about making "special screenings" SPECIAL EXPERIENCES!

ALI MACGRAW, appearing at so-called "impresario," Marc Huestis' latest CASTRO THEATRE "extravaganza"--a special  Valentine's Day(14 February 2012)screening of her major motion picture romantic melodrama, LOVE STORY(1970)--recently stated she was still to this day "puzzled" by the film's enduring popularity amongst so many movie-goers.  And that she was both "interested" and "curious" about how the movie would be received by a contemporary Castro Theatre crowd!

I can't speak for the contemporary crowd as we gave the flick's screening a big MISS due to aforementioned reasons already recounted.  But what do either Marc Huestis or Ali Macgraw care?  And why should they care, really?  They both got their big payday: Huestis collected his fat percentage take of the admittance ticket proceeds!  Ali collected her fat appearance fee paycheck!  No, we don't begrudge Ali that in the least--she's the flick's beautiful and talented co-star; it's a well-deserved perk of her professional career, and that's more than fine by us!  As for what paying Castro Theatre patrons got for the price of their tickets--judging by the Huestis-massacred Valentine's Day screening of Romeo and Juliet(1968)forty years later in 2008!--is yet another untold story yet to be told!

As for what this marvelous movie meant(and still means)to me comprises plenty of reason why Marc Huestis Presents ought to take some pains to take special care to take some semblance of RESPONSIBILITY for making such a live, in-person movie event a special and PLEASURABLE experience for ALL!  Especially since such an exceptional movie experience holds special meaning and significance for the viewers--especially for the more sensitive(and, yes, sentimental)viewers who appreciated it most when it was first released on 16 December 1970!


For me, unlike for Ali, there's really no esoteric much less puzzling mystery about why Love Story is and remains so special for so many people: simply because it's so full of humanity with innumerable and immeasurable moments of humanity shared mostly by two young people so fully, so passionately, so rapturously, so wholly in love!  Only those who've never, ever experienced such devoted love don't get it and likely never will.  And that's sad and too bad for them.


Transgender "performer," Justin Vivian Bond, who supposedly sang a "sorry" medley at the Castro Theatre event, recently referred to the flick as being "sappy."  With that little tid-bit I rest my case concerning insensitive and unsentimental individuals.  Any fairly newlywed couple who lost a spouse to any terminal disease undoubtedly understood the un-sappiness of the concept!  Bond's doubtless less-than-"sappy" when he's whining about "homophobia."  If Bond's medley was as god-awful as Connie Champagne's "A Time For Us," Love Story's, "Where Do I Begin?" was no doubt equally "sorry," all right.  But that's neither here nor there.


I was an impressionable sweet 16 when I first went alone to the Spanish Baroque Saenger Theatre in Pensacola, Florida to see Love Story.  Despite hyper Bay Area pretension and mis-conception about the so-called "Deep South," San Francisco isn't the country's sole city boasting a historic theatre!  In fact, the Saenger's contained in the US National Register of Historic Places.


I was hand-carrying my new encased Bach trumpet as I was on my way afterwards to an orchestra rehearsal for a Pensacola Catholic  High School production of the musical, Sweet Charity(1966); I played first trumpet in high school band.


On my way into the theatre I was accosted by a chubby, cute adopted daugher and sister of a best friend of mine since fourth grade; her name's Rosie.


"Joe!" she exclaimed incredulously, just coming out of the theatre.  "I didn't know you liked this kind of movie!"


Apparently, presumptuous Rosie never knew me very well.


Being an instrumental musician especially sensitive to exceptional music, I was immediately overtaken from beginning to end by composer Francis Lai's extraordinary and beautifully haunting musical score.  So I was all at once tenderly affected, musically moved and emotionally touched by this profoundly romantic film and all its profoundly romantic moments; my eyes welled out with tears throughout.  In short, its intense poignancy--it's just that simple, really.  And if you don't(or can't)feel it, then you'd never get it. 


Following the film, I footed it west from downtown Pensacola, for multiple city blocks with trumpet case in hand, just to make it late and sweaty to the Pensacola High School auditorium at 500 West Maxwell Street, for my high school play orchestra rehearsal!  And all because I'd been so intent on seeing that movie right then!


Two years later during my senior year--for a solo, pianist-accompanied trumpet performance before a crowded high school auditorium assembly--I nervously but successfully played Love Story's famed love theme, Where Do I Begin?--albeit with some classical variations added.


The year before that in 1971--before I left on my own accord an extremely dys-functional family situation--I'd been subjected to watching my mother couch-cuddling with a medical X-ray technician from Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital whom she was having a short-lived extra-marital affair with--in my bastard step-father's absence.  A particularly pathetic scene to inflict upon an impressionable teen-ager--especially to the emotive melody of, Where Do I Begin?, which they played on the record turntable incessantly during their cuddle-sessions!


During the summer of 1973 I visited the resplendent Chestnut Hill campus of Boston College--close to Love Story's Harvard University Cambridge--as a prospective student even though I'd been accepted for admission but never attended.  Throughout that campus visit, for whatever reason, all that went through my head was Love Story composer, Francis Lai's film composition, SNOW FROLIC!


In the Los Angeles,California area in September 1974, during a cross-country trip stop-over, I was pretty certain that I actually caught a glimpse of a young ALI MACGRAW driving her car!  It was her long, gleaming black hair that was the give-away! 


In 1990 my mother would die of acute leukemia at her medical technician lover's employer, Sacred Heart Hospital. 


Perhaps then such reminiscences(and associations)might suffice to explain to the complacent and unconcerned--that is, the likes of Marc Huestis Presents--some reason why more conscientious and meticulous care could be taken to ensure for all paying Castro Theatre patrons a more pleasurable than painful experience when screening special films of this moment.


Why so special: because you carry such films along with you throughout your life's journey--no matter how old you might live to be--or even how "sappy" your life and loves might prove to be!


Before whining, just stop and THINK about it FIRST!

San Francisco's CASTRO THEATRE in general, and MARC HUESTIS PRESENTS in particular, are in DIRE NEED of QUALITY CONTROL!

Why would such a fervent fan as myself of the major motion picture film, LOVE STORY(1970), deliberately miss at the Castro Theatre a special, supposed "gala event" screening and sacrifice the admittedly rare chance to see a "live" and in-person appearance by its major co-star, the still beautiful , ALI MACGRAW?

A simple reply personified by three words: MARC HUESTIS PRESENTS!

And a complaint I don't make lightly.  But then, so-called "impresario," Marc Huestis, doesn't give a flying hang about whether the supposed "gala" movie-going events he puts on so rapaciously become a quality memorable experience for his movie-going public!

"It's make or break!" Huestis spouted before his Valentine's Day(14 February 2008)screening of Romeo and Juliet(1968), featuring celebrity guest, Olivia Hussey, for which grisly-grinning Huestis gouged patrons $25 a pop to attend.  Yeah, it's make-or-break for his pocketbook!

And what were paying patrons treated to?  An unruly, retarded three-ring circus mob scene all out of control!  To say nothing of "vocalist" Connie Champagne's excruciating, on-stage dirge-rendition(her voice was incapable of executing)of composer, Nino Rota's famed love theme, A Time For Us.  To say nothing of Huestis' incessant cackling on-stage "interview" with Hussey.  To say nothing of a classic film screening courtesy of a patron's DVD--as a reel celluloid screening was suddenly impossible due to--unsurprisingly--"technical difficulty!"

Throughout the so-called "screening"--throughout all the theatre aisles with absolutely no admonishment or oversight by theatre staff--did the real, raucous "show" take place: puerile punks chit-chatting noisily amongst themselves, texting on their distractingly brightly-lit cell phones, bobbing up-and-down in their seats like giddy jacks-in-the-box, or even roving up-and-down the frigging aisles en masse!  Hooligans galore!!  It was an obscene scene!  But it was anything but an enjoyable movie-going experience!

We wanted our ticket money back but were naturally denied.  Huestis, in our estimation, was both immoral and unethical to keep it under those circumstances.  But, hey!  What the fuk does he care?  He got his big, "make-or-break" payday either way!  So, as a direct result, we vowed never, ever again to attend any theatrical event promoted as, Marc Huestis Presents! 

His die-hard groupies will doubtless whine like crybabies that this opinion amounts to some perverse persecution of poor bad-mouthed, dissed Huestis.  After all, free speech and expression are values they prize so hypocritically only when it's convenient to do so: meaning only when they're in perfect agreement with opinions freely spoken and expressed!  What they'll remain ever incapable of even conceiving much less comprehending: along with such a high-priced, patron-gouging, profiteering "event" ought to come as well a certain obligation or RESPONSIBILITY to make the event a pleasurable--not a painful--experience for ALL the paying patrons in attendance!  And not for just Huestis' front-row groupies!  Get it?  Good!

KAISER PERMANENTE EMERGENCY ROOM QUACKERY!!!

At the Kaiser Permanente Foundation hospital emergency room in Oakland, California I was initially left lying on the stretcher placed flush against the wall at the open entryway; shortly after my arrival a fellow conscious black male patient was rolled in on another stretcher and parked ahead of me at my feet.

I was still visibly and uncontrollably trembling all over my body as a result of my reaction to the health supplement substance I had ingested.  Once the younger male intake nurse appeared to attend to me, his prime concern was to ask me to recite out aloud my name and birthday—presumably for identification verification purposes. 

My identity duly verified, my intake nurse promptly disappeared for an indeterminate amount of time.  So I had to ask my caring companion to ask him for a blanket to help relieve my overly observable shivering, which the intake nurse dispatched my companion to retrieve from a heating receptacle in an adjoining hallway, rather than deign to get it himself.  My companion helped me to spread the blanket over me.

After awhile the first and most pleasant of three nurses—a lady—appeared to wheel me on my stretcher into a cramped, unclean and ill-equipped room at the end of the hallway where, after asking me a couple preliminary questions, left me alone for another indeterminate amount of time.  Leisurely, I say, since there was no overt display of care or concern indicating that my particular emergency was anything but trifling and unimportant—despite overtly perceivable symptoms to the contrary.

The second nurse—an overweight lady—appeared to ask me to repeat answers to the very same questions already asked by the first two nurses.

“I’ve already answered these questions,” I told her.

“And you’ll have to answer them again,” she smugly remarked.

Evidently there’s no conducive inter-communications occurring amongst these Kaiser “care”-givers.  And that superfluous and repetitious interrogations supersede patient care as their priority concern.  Expecting otherwise would be far too extravagant.  Since none of these mindless attendants appeared even to know the reason why I was there, they’re most likely simply too lazy to consult together with one another about trivial things like patients.

With the overweight nurse’s first attempt at taking my blood pressure it was discovered that none of the pressure cuffs on hand were usable; so the nurse disappeared for another indeterminate amount of time to find a usable cuff for measuring my blood pressure—which proved to be in a hypertensive range once she returned to finally take it.

A third slender male nurse finally appeared to attempt to hook me up to a saline solution.  Attempt, I say, because the broken gurney for hanging the solution bag was likewise unusable; so he disappeared to find a usable metal attachment, which he returned with after an indeterminate amount of time.

Once the third male nurse returned with a workable gurney he finally connected the saline solution—expressing overt surprise there was already a previously inserted(by the ambulance attendant), unused IV needle already protruding from the crook of my left arm!

“You’d expect that,” the male nurse snidely cracked, “your being in the ER.”  That was his clever, curt reply to my inquiry confirming my hypertensive blood pressure.

He left and returned just to berate me for drinking a can of sweetened tea I’d packed in my shoulder bag for refreshment.

Ultimately my primary “care”-giver—Jeffrey Craig Hong, M.D.—finally deigned to appear with this brilliant opening gambit—if you’re ready for this: “Why are you here?”

Just passing the time of day, I supposed.  I was sort of hoping somebody with some credible medical know-how could diagnose my difficulty and tell ME why I was there!

Instead, I repetitiously rattled off my entire list of symptoms: elevated blood pressure and heart rate, light-headedness, feeling faint, body shivers, sweatiness in my forehead and palms.

No need to do any lab tests to determine the causes of such symptoms, Dr. Hong condescended to tell me, saying he would administer the valium-like drug—Atavan—“to bring this down.”  Presumably, he meant bringing my overly elevated blood pressure down.  No Atavan drug was ever administered to me however—despite the pretenses of the nurses and the falsification of my emergency room record indicating the contrary.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hong cracks about my companion, crouched on a stool in the corner of the dirty room.  “She looks angry.”

“She’s worried about me!” I actually had to enlighten the idiot.  Not to mention extremely upset at the blatant LACK OF TREATMENT I was receiving.  During this entire nonsensical conversation, this quack stood roughly six feet or more away from my bed, as if I had the plague or something.  At NO TIME did he EVER "examine" me--meaning he never checked my heartrate  or temperature or ANYTHING ELSE!

As my companion could easily testify, she observed both the do-nothing quack and the do-nothing nurses: and NONE of them administered to me ANY Atavan—either orally or intravenously through the IV line!  Despite the third male nurse’s false assurance that it had been introduced through the bag of saline solution.

Once more the second overweight lady nurse returned to check up on me before disappearing for yet another indeterminate amount of time.

“This is why I hate Kaiser,” my companion confided.  “Only Summit hospital’s worse.”

It was clear these indolent and indifferent individuals were intent on doing absolutely nothing to either investigate or relieve my symptoms—except keep my lying dormant and hooked up to a bag of saline solution.  So there was little sensible alternative but to leave as the first opportunity; I could suffer less miserably at home in my own bed in the company of somebody who gave a damn.

“They act like robots,” my companion observed.  And like the sluggish and slow-as-molasses black ambulance driver, that’s exactly how they acted and conducted themselves: inanimate automatons!

My companion then went in search of the second overweight lady nurse, and found her idling and drinking coffee in front of a computer.  Doubtless surfing the internet for one or the other of those fascinating social networking websites.

My companion took the initiative to ask the nurse to look in on me because she thought I felt ready and well enough to leave.  Ignoring her, the nurse remained engrossed with whatever arrested her attention on the computer.  My companion persisted on my behalf, telling her to handle it since it was time for us to go.

Eventually this nurse got out of the seat she was riveted to and said she had to first find the doctor so that he could discharge me.  Briefly she re-entered my room and then left after telling me she’d find the doctor.

My companion stood in the room’s doorway to make sure the nurse did just that.  The nurse saw her and told her she was sending for the doctor to discharge me.  The quack never came.

Sometime later the nurse returned to remove the IV needle from my arm without looking for any tape with which to dress the needle wound with protective gauze.  My companion tried pointing out some tape set on a nearby tabletop but the nurse ignored her again. 

Instead, the nurse tried to attach the gauze with some second-hand tape stuck to the IV line that kept coming unstuck!  Now THAT’s sanitary!  As was the visit in the interim by two Latina janitors to change the trash bin bags! 

After this incompetent clod of a nurse left for the last time, my companion snapped up the tape and stuck the gauze simply and securely to my needle-punctured arm.

Sometime in-between all these inept and ineffectual visits, a lady entering the room announced that she was from “registration,” and after understanding at last that I had no funds to pay on-the-spot the $50 “co-payment” I was to be charged, admonished me to remember for the future the requisite “co-payment.”  This same lady from “registration” actually discharged me.

My official “Discharge Instructions” read as follows:

·         “Your care was provided by Hong, Jeffrey Craig(M.D.).  NO “CARE” WAS EVER PROVIDED.

·         “You were treated for the following: Shakiness, sweatiness, light-headedness after taking yohimbine supplement.  CONVENIENTLY OMITTED FROM THIS RECORD WAS MY EXTREMELY ELEVATED BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEARTRATE.

·         “You received the following tests and/or procedures: Examination, iv fluids, ativan.  NO EXAMINATION WAS EVER MADE.  NO ATIVAN WAS EVER ADMINISTERED.

·         “Your results showed: Reassuring results.”  HOW COULD OR WOULD THEY KNOW?

Doubtless these do-nothing, good-for-nothing BASTARDS could attempt to deny any and all culpability had I gone into CARDIAC ARREST due to severe heart arrhythmia at their indifferent and negligent hands.

God only knows what happens to unconscious patients unable to voice any protests must suffer at the hands of these inept and ineffectual INCOMPETENTS!

All I know for certain is: Kaiser Permanente’s cookie-cutter QUACKERY is in dire need of some effective and reformative oversight by state authority!


As an inconceivable footnote: these shysters sent me a bill for my $50 "co-payment" in an invoice  describing the supposed total cost of these  emergency room NON-services: $1016.10!

Unbelievably BEYOND WORDS!

OUTRAGEOUS PARAMEDICS PLUS NO-EMERGENCY CARE IN THE CESSPOOL OF OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

If you ever happen to suffer the extreme misfortune of experiencing a serious medical emergency in the cesspool City of Oakland California, then you might just as well take your life in your own hands rather than put it into the mightily indifferent, do-nothing and negligent hands of remarkably irresponsible Oakland emergency response personnel.  You’d be far better off on your own than even hoping to depend upon these indifferent INCOMPETENTS!
Late Monday morning the 9^th of January 2012 I was visiting at her two-story Oakland duplex a female friend of mine.  A couple of hours before my arrival I had ingested the recommended dosage of a health store supplement containing yohimbine, which I’ve resorted to as part of my regular physical training regimen to no detrimental ill effect in the past.  That day, however, I suffered an extremely severe ADVERSE reaction.


Personally, I’m 58(as of 24 January)and exceptionally healthy and physically fit for my age.  On the other hand, I do suffer from a couple chronic ill-health conditions relevant to this account:

·         Severe mitral valve prolapse/regurgitation, which the Kaiser Foundation’s own website cautions this way: “If serious, this condition can lead to a backup of blood in the left atrium and the lungs, cause enlargement of and damage to the left ventricle, and lead to heart failure.”

·         Severe Rhinitis/Sinisitis, which is typified by amongst other things excessive mucus accumulation, nasal inflammation, air blockage worsened by the crooked or deviated septum in my right nasal passage.

My outwardly physically fit appearance then would belie BOTH of these severe health conditions since I have remained asymptomatic(without overt symptoms)regarding my severe mitral valve regurgitation since it was first diagnosed in 2006 and strongly recommended for heart surgery, which I have yet to consent to undertaking.   My heart condition is likewise extremely susceptible to lethal bacterial INFECTION.

During my visit I suffered the sudden onset of adverse effects of taking the supplement: extremely elevated heart rate, high blood pressure, dizziness, light-headedness, shivering and sweatiness.  In fact, my blood pressure as measured at the hospital proved to be hyper-tensive.  At its worst, both my head and palms were breaking out in cold sweat, and my body was shivering uncontrollably all over.  I felt as if I were going into shock.  And when my vision began clouding over, I feared I would black out completely.  So I felt faint as the result of what was most likely an induced panic attack if nothing else.  I was so fearful for my life that I actually prayed for divine intervention.  Especially disconcerting was the fact that I was experiencing these symptoms reclined supine at complete rest on a second-floor bed!  At my delirious plea for help, then, my friend called 911 to summon emergency medical assistance.

To their commendable credit, Oakland’s Fire Rescue Services three personnel(one young Asian man and two young women)responded to my emergency with all the caring compassion, concern, efficiency and skill anybody suffering a similar situation could ever expect: in no time flat the Asian responder had me hooked up to both oxygen(which I was extremely grateful for due to my chronic breathing impediment)and ECG machine, which was especially relevant in my case since severe mitral valve regurgitation can result in abnormal and deadly heart rhythms.  Likewise he only asked me the most relevant heart-related questions—related to my outward symptoms—to assess my condition promptly and efficiently.  He took two readings since the first exhibited extreme heart arrhythmia; the second reading showed less severity.  All I can recall overhearing was something said about a “wide wave.”

“Are you saying that I should just ride this out and stay here then?” I asked the Asian responder after the second ECG reading.

“No, not at all,” he answered.

He indicated they wanted to remove me to a PARAMEDICS PLUS ambulance waiting outside so first I sat up, paused, and then put all my effort into standing up on my own accord to walk slowly downstairs, which I did with the aid of a middle-aged white male who would be the back-of-the-truck ambulance attendant.

Admittedly I was feeling precious little physical debility but, instead, extreme mental anxiety due to the severe external symptoms of uncontrollable shivering and sweating together with the extremely elevated heart rate and blood pressure.  What I was worried about most was suffering cardiac arrest, which without electronic defibrillation results in certain death within roughly five minutes or less!

Approaching the second-floor stairwell landing I first encountered the second ambulance responder and driver—a middle-aged black man whose entire attitude and demeanor displayed absolutely nothing but the utmost care-less indifference, insensitivity and un-concern.  His extremely complacent facial expression displayed nothing but supreme scorn for me as a patient in no real grave difficulty who was also supreme nuisance causing him, in turn, grave inconvenience.  Throughout this entire emergency, he moved slow—as proverbially slow as molasses—at a snail’s pace.  Comatose, in fact, best describes his movements most accurately.  From the beginning, then, it was patently clear that this black responder wasn’t about to over-exert himself in the slightest to lifting a finger, much less put himself out to assist me—in spite of the mobile chair he had clearly strained himself to carry to the top of the stairwell landing.

So it was left to the first white ambulance responder to assist me to the stretcher parked on the sidewalk outside the building.  I volunteered to walk on my own to the parked ambulance, but the white responder insisted that I mount the stretcher.  Even then his gravest concern was that my butt was moved snug enough against the base of the inclined part of the stretcher top!

After I was leisurely loaded into the rear of the ambulance it was still the Oakland Fire Rescue personnel who still voiced the most care and concern for my personal welfare and well-being.

“Feel better, sir!” I clearly recall one of the women responders calling out to me before departing.

I was sorely sorry to watch the Oakland Fire Rescue personnel leave the scene since I felt intuitively that the two-man ambulance crew could care less either way whether I lived or died.  And by the subsequent care-less and do-nothing conduct they consistently displayed throughout this emergency, I was proved quite correct.

I overheard my companion ask the black ambulance driver if she could ride in the back with me; he insisted that she ride in front with him.  Trouble is, we weren’t riding anyplace anytime soon—not before we’d sit there parked in the street for an interminable amount of time doing absolutely nothing but engage in completely superfluous and unimportant activity.

The black ambulance driver had to move a black laptop computer from the passenger seat to accommodate my companion.

Before she was going to climb up right into the back of the truck alongside me, but the black driver just rudely gestured to her to proceed to the front.

Once seated in the front of the truck, the first dumb question this brainiac black asks my companion is: “Is HE your FATHER?”  Referring to me of course in the impersonal third-person since he hasn’t even bothered yet to ask my name.

This black freak doesn’t even know my name, much less my age or condition of health, and the very FIRST dumb question out of his mouth to my companion is: “Is HE your FATHER?”

Our age difference is roughly 18 years, but I seriously doubt whether ANY objective observer would even normally ask much less presume we were even blood-related, even less whether I was her FATHER!

Next this black freak asks my COMPANION for HER name and number.  After that he asks her for MY name, age and date of birth. 

Next this black freak asks my companion whether I used DRUGS like crack or crank?  For the record, I’ve never used ANY KIND OF DRUGS IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! 

What’s the point of that most impertinent question in the first place, considering my heart-related state and condition?

He wrote down her replies on a pre-printed paper form contained in a metallic box pad.  Apparently this black freak would MIS-spell my last name on the form as Corino.  That’s the least of this freak’s indifferent inefficiency.

Conspicuously worried and concerned, my companion readily complied with giving him my full name and birthdate.

Next this black freak tells my companion that I’m perfectly “fine”—and were I in any “real danger” he would have “taken off” and the ambulance lights and sirens “would be going.”

Pretty incredible, really: this black freak, who hasn’t even examined me much less diagnosed my condition—being eminently UN-qualified to do so in the first place—is already making medical pronouncements about it!  Nor did he ever consult with the fire rescue personnel about it.

My companion reminded the black freak that before their arrival on the scene, I had experienced midmost chest pain, was shaky and sweaty like a relation of hers who’d experienced such symptoms prior to a heart attack.

Then this black, UN-qualified, NON-physician began feeding my companion some inane line about how men and women are supposedly “different” when they suffer heart attacks.

“Why haven’t we left yet?” my companion asked him.

Too crippled and incapacitated to address me directly, this black freak then shouts back to me(lying in the back of the truck)in a tired tone from his seat riveted in the front of the truck: “What’s the year of your birth, sir?”

After that, my companion recounts that this black freak finally condescended to put their truck in gear and begin to drive off with me in back at less than even half speed.

In the meantime, the white responder with me in the back of the truck was just about as ineffective and useless as the black freak in front when it came to offering me any aid at all for purposes of relieving my symptoms or anxiety before or whilst en route to the hospital.

First, this white jerk-off CUTS OFF my oxygen supply, feeding me some inane line about how administering over-doses of oxygen to some unidentified heart patients can be lethal—never explaining any reason how or why that tidbit of trivia was the least relevant to ME!

Next, this white jerk-off inserts a “larger” IV needle into my left arm but never introduces the first solution through it!

All I can figure is: these two care-less, do-nothing, indifferent BASTARDS automatically (and wrongly)adjudged me as being in NO URGENT NEED OF MEDICAL CARE WITHOUT THE FIRST PROPER EXAMINATION OR DIAGNOSIS AND PREFERRED INSTEAD TO CONSERVE THEIR EQUIPMENT SUPPLY RATHER THAN LEND ME ANY AID OR TREATMENT TO RELIEVE MY ANXIETY AND SYMPTOMS IN TRANSIT TO THE HOSPITAL.

Next, this white jerk-off proceeds to subject me to a barrage of inane and irrelevant questions regarding conditions of my health: whether I’d ever had anything and everything from diabetes, hepatitis, HIV to erectile dysfunction!

Then, this white jerk-off proceeds to play with his LAPTOP COMPUTER, looking up yohimbine on the GOOGLE internet search engine to research its aspects since—as he readily admitted—he’d never heard of it before!

Up front my companion confides that if anything happened to me she wouldn’t know what to do.  To that the black freak driver tells her to stop worrying—that in back I’m in, get this: “GOOD HANDS!”

I might just as well’ve been in NOBODY’S HANDS for all the good these two USELESS CLODS were doing me!

Adding further insult to injury, this black freak of an ambulance driver then proceeds to chat up my companion in front and engage her in a completely personal and irrelevant conversation about HER PRIVATE LIFE—from everything about whether she wrote(and/or wrote “papers” for other people!), where she went to school and worked tutoring students!  Why, they even got around to discussing the neighborhood in East Oakland HE lives in and what “church” he attends: “Acts Full Gospel.”  Incredible, the overt displays of compassion exhibited by self-professed churchgoers!

In stride with his slow-as-molasses, snail’s-paced body language was this black freak’s slow-as-molasses, snails-paced drive through the back streets of Oakland to deliver me at long last to Kaiser Permanente Foundation’s lackluster emergency room.

Twice, in fact, this black freak of an ambulance driver actually pulled over to roll down his window to stop and greet pedestrian acquaintances he apparently knew: the first, an elderly white woman in the vicinity of Piedmont Avenue; the second, a black lady in the vicinity of West MacArthur Boulevard, whom he volunteered was from his “hood” on 73^rd Avenue at Krause!

For all this black freak cared, we were out on a freakin’ FIELD TRIP taking a quaint joyride with my friend through the country—not transporting a potential heart patient to a hospital emergency room!

All I know is this: this black freak has absolutely NO BUSINESS WHATEVER DRIVING ANY AMBULANCE MUCH LESS TRANSPORTING TO THE HOSPITAL ANY PATIENTS IN URGENT NEED OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE AND SHOULD BE PROMPTLY DISCHARGED AND BANNED FROM DRIVING ANY AMBULANCE ANYPLACE EVER AGAIN!

Parked outside the Oakland Kaiser Permanente Foundation emergency room at long last, I overheard the two care-less, do-nothing ambulance drivers lengthy back-and-forth exchange, haggling about which one would unload me and wheel me inside.  The black freak insisted he’d do it and so prevailed.

All I lifted up my head to see next was the black freak just standing there at the back of the ambulance, not saying a thing, but instead giving me the most disgusting, cavalier, brazen-faced GRIN he could muster.  Yes, that's exactly right, instead of moving me this black freak’s IDLING there to flash his UGLY grin at me!  Without a word I laid there, glaring back.

Finally this black freak condescends to get the LEAD out of his listless, shiftless BUTT to condescend to make a move to move me.

“Keep your hands inside the rail!” he barks at me like a rabid dog once I grasped the upturned stretcher rails to hold on for balance; after unloading me he wheeled me just inside the open emergency room entrance to slide my stretcher bed up against a vacant hospital stretcher bed.

Upwards of ten to 12 ECG electrode leads were still draped in a tangled string all around my neck, not to mention the discarded oxygen nose-clip—none of which the white jerk-off had bothered to take off me despite cutting off my air supply in the ambulance.

So the black freak just stood there—still SLOW-AS-MOLASSES—acting as if he couldn’t figure out what to do about the entangled electrode leads all about my neck.  He limply held up a hand—as if he could barely lift a finger—but never touched a thing.

“Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!” I FELT like crying out, much like the character played by Charlton Heston in the original Planet of the Apes(1968): George Taylor.

Out of frustration at this black freak’s dull and indifferent DAWDLING I simply grasped and ripped off all the electrode leads from my neck in one fell swoop.

“Not yet!” this black freak snaps at me not once but THREE times before he finally deigned to grant me his magnanimous permission to slide myself from the ambulance bed to the hospital bed!

Throughout this entire travesty this black freak didn’t utter the first friendly or encouraging word to me—the patient.  Throughout the entire snail-paced trip to the hospital, though, he conversed quite freely and profusely about both his and her private lives, clearly exploiting and taking advantage of my incapacitated condition to make time with her!

Ultimately at the hospital emergency room, though, he rudely gestured for her to stand at a spot on the other side of the passageway—well away—instead of right next to me at my stretcher bed where, as my friend and companion, she belonged.  I would've been a whole lot better off taking a frigging TAXICAB to the emergency room for all the good these two clowns did me!

If ANYBODY reading this actually believes that this supposed emergency response constituted correct treatment of the patient and proper transport procedure then all I can say is this: I can only hope and pray that you or a beloved one of your own experiences the very same treatment and transport as I did at the care-less, do-nothing, good-for-nothing hands of these two BASTARDS!